More on my fiction writing

March 19, 2009

Central Phoenix: Good, bad, ugly

Because I know the fragile self-esteem of Phoenicians is at stake, let me begin my observations about the state of the center city with the good stuff. I smelled the orange blossoms -- even stepping out into one of ugliest urban spaces anywhere, the pedestrian loading zone at Sky Harbor. Many of the Midwestern transplants dislike the scent, which makes me dislike some of them even more. But this small, fleeting thing reminds me of my often magical city that is gone forever.

Some of the projects begun under former Mayor Skip Rimsza and spearheaded by people like former Deputy City Manager Sheryl Sculley, retired Deputy City Manager Jack Tevlin and Ed Zuercher, now a deputy city manager, have turned out quite well. As I wrote before, the starter light-rail line is great. Now lots of places are clamoring for LRT; the trick will be to avoid using light rail when commuter rail would be more efficient. A metro area the size of Phoenix needs both. The Convention Center is such a startlingly attractive set of buildings that you wonder if the design was approved by mistake, given Phoenix's ability to erect such ugliness. The ASU downtown campus, Mayor Gordon's signature accomplishment, is more of a reality, and thus will be more difficult for the Legislature to destroy. The lovely oasis of Arizona Center remains, shady and cool.

Read on if you want to know "the rest of the story," as the late Paul Harvey would say.

Much of the center city looks as if it has been cleaned up after repeated carpet bombing by the Allies in World War II. There's just nothing there. It's staggering to see the cleared land along Van Buren, Washington and Jefferson in what was to be Mayor Gordon's "Opportunity Corridor." Other vacant lots proliferate around the Central Corridor. City Hall seems to have learned nothing from its clear cutting of the neighborhoods between 7th Avenue and the state capitol during the 1980s.

This is problematic for many reasons. First is what's lost. One would never know that Phoenix in 1950 was as densely populated as Seattle is today. Buildings, many average but many with architectural value, crowded along every street. For example, the district between 7th Avenue and the capitol had many Victorian houses and apartments from the territorial and 1920s era. Van Buren and east McDowell, to give just two examples, sported commercial strips with the buildings right up to the sidewalk. Downtown and the warehouse district were dense with interesting, durable, and in some cases priceless buildings. Now all gone.

In healthy cities, these buildings and commercial strips are the building blocks of walkable, livable, entrepreneurially vibrant areas. The buildings are sometimes lovingly restored -- carrying a value that will never attach to a 1970s shopping center -- and other times are simply re-used through the decades as inexpensive space for local shops and companies. Older neighborhoods, such as that near the capitol, have the houses and apartments with "good bones" that can attract reinvestment and be magnets for the creative class. Phoenix, by bad policy and bad luck, lost this opportunity. By tearing down, it helped drive small business from the center city and made it much harder to revive downtown.

One sees it along Roosevelt Row, where the gallery owners hang on bravely. Much of the "Row" is vacant land that as late as the 1970s was occupied by street-front commercial buildings. Imagine if these had been saved. Specifically, imagine if the owners had been virtually prohibited from tearing them down, as happens in healthy cities through a variety of means. But I think of the small things. There used to be a tiny block of commercial buildings near where Moreland and Culver met Third Avenue. These were probably knocked down for the freeway or long before. But this could have been a coffee house or quirky retailer right in a lovely historic neighborhood. Instead, Phoenix has suburban separation of uses that prevents walkable neighborhoods.

The tear-downs and vacant land attract blight. And they are in the clutches of land bankers, who apparently intend to hold these eyesores forever. Why do developers plan these totally out-of-scale 40-story towers? Because the land owners are asking astronomical prices for the property. A stiff tax on empty land could cure much.

Meanwhile, the real-estate depression is everywhere apparent. The small first phase of Portland Place is complete. The rest of the land -- prime property along the deck park -- lies vacant (I am assured the project will resume). As I wrote before, I'd guess 10 percent of the promised private projects are complete or under construction. It will be interesting to see what happens with CityScape. Most of the beautifully restored Gold Spot is empty. None of this is complicated: the central city must be more than sports, conventions and restaurants -- or even ASU. It must attract private-sector companies with high-wage jobs. And, yes, it must take priority over other parts of the 500-square-mile "city."

The desertification of the central city continues. The lovely shaded park at the Viad Tower (that nearby condo tower never happened, of course) has been badly mauled, much of it replaced by gravel and a few stubby desert plants. Little-by-little, Willo properties -- lots of "for sale" signs -- go desert. Trees keep being lost. More concrete is poured, such as the solar oven outside the new crime lab. This is so wrong-headed. First, the central Salt River Valley has been an oasis going back to the Hohokam. Much of its appeal in modern times came from the abundant grass, flowers and shade trees. Yes, this takes water, and it's worth it. Concrete and gravel are not "authentic" Sonoran Desert -- a city is not "authentic" Sonoran Desert. I mourn the loss, but also fear for the future killer summers as the cooling effect of old Phoenix is lost while the temperature keeps rising.

Get this: Phoenix is competing for talent and capital that can go anywhere, and they tend to go to cities that offer choices, especially a vibrant, urban downtown and walkable, livable center-city neighborhoods. Competing cities have all the suburban crap Phoenix has. Most of them have their version of Snottsdale. They have their version of Mill Ave. But they have what Phoenix lacks, in the central core.

At least Union Station is still standing. When that's gone, it will be the signal to never again visit what once was home. In the meantime, it was fun to see so many friends and acquaintances, often just by walking in some place like My Florist. Many said they were loyal Rogue readers -- and relieved every day that they didn't see their names here.

Comments

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Even if all those vacant lots manifested condo towers in some unimagineable future, Phoenix would still suck. But not to worry, they won't. Perhaps, there'll be a CVS or Walgreen's, maybe an apartment complex if we're slightly luckier. But the fine-grained building stock that makes cities come alive? That's gone, and it's forever.

The bad news keeps spreading north and eastward. Twenty some years ago, Camelback Rd was fairly lively. There were places to hang out like Caf Casino, Entz-White, The French Corner, the Cine Capri, Orbitz, and the surprisingly fertile Town & Country, now a ghost of its former self. The news isn't all grim, but the trendlines are. That's why any old building needs to be guarded like an endangered species. The very little that Phoenix has are carrying tremendous responsibilities if we ever hope to find a real city here.

When we look at the downtown restaurant renaissance and how vital old houses and a few vintage buildings are to their success, this one should be no-brainer. Alas, this is Phoenix, cemetary of dreams. We want to nurture this wounded beast but some committee of surgeons keeps amputating its limbs.

So glad to see the mention of retail space that come right up to the sidewalk. It's such a simple idea yet it's virtually impossible to find in all of Metro Phoenix. Heck, even LA has this!

The isolation caused by seas of parking lots is devastating to making a city walkable. If there were two elements that would help make Phoenix more walkable and thus a more urban city, it would be streetfront buildings and parallel parking.

It's unfortunate that mother nature, combined with the heat island, wiped out so many mature trees in Willo and the Viad park last August. It's inexcusable that this was used as an excuse to switch to more desert landscaping.